The Trudeau government: We only respect your Charter rights if you're using them to agree with us!

Specifically, pro-life groups have been denied access to a summer jobs grant program run by the federal government because they won't sign a form saying they support women's reproductive rights (which is implied to include the right to an abortion).

This is effectively thoughtcrime and an attempt to abridge freedom of expression, and for that matter, isn't even on good footing as far as what the Charter actually guarantees: only Justice Wilson even suggested that the Charter guaranteed the right to an abortion; the other two opinions in Morgentaler were narrow and technical and only focused on how the extant law abridged Charter rights while leaving matters open for Parliament to enact new legislation without saying that it would be found unconstitutional.

(tl;dr there's no constitutional right to an abortion in Canada.)

I hope the lawsuits these groups are filing are successful, because, as the Prime Minister noted when his government settled with Omar Khadr, the Charter protects all Canadians.

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Considering the Trump Administration's attitudes, I find this to be appealing.

I don't.

If it were the government not giving grants to religious organizations, that would be one thing. I might be OK with that, since I don't think the government should be funding religion.

But it's not that. It's the government not giving grants to organizations (that are available to other organizations) based solely on a policy disagreement. (As I noted, there is no right to an abortion in Canada--there is no enforceable federal criminal law on the matter (and the federal government has sole authority over criminal law), but provinces can regulate it as a health matter.) That sets a very dangerous precedent, if access to government programs can be denied on the basis of not agreeing with the government.

Do I agree with these groups? No. But I don't want them denied funding because of that.

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It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

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Be weird, cause normal is boring.

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From my rotting body, flowers will grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

Eh, I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for right-wingers lately. They kinda deserve whatever bad happens to them, really. Especially since right-wingers here are fighting to shut down pro-choice organizations entirely.

I'm not Canadian, though, so take any words with a grain of salt.

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Eh, I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for right-wingers lately. They kinda deserve whatever bad happens to them, really. Especially since right-wingers here are fighting to shut down pro-choice organizations entirely.

I don't think anyone's exactly crying themselves to sleep over the poor widdle conservatives. It's more concern that the Canadian government seems to want to police people's ideology all of a sudden. Let's just say it's a touch short sighted to be fine with it just because it's right now fucking over a group you don't like. After all, what do you think will happen when the conservatives are back in power?

Eh, I have a hard time feeling any sympathy for right-wingers lately. They kinda deserve whatever bad happens to them, really. Especially since right-wingers here are fighting to shut down pro-choice organizations entirely.

I don't think anyone's exactly crying themselves to sleep over the poor widdle conservatives. It's more concern that the Canadian government seems to want to police people's ideology all of a sudden. Let's just say it's a touch short sighted to be fine with it just because it's right now fucking over a group you don't like. After all, what do you think will happen when the conservatives are back in power?

That's a very good point, or it would be if one weren't reasonably certain that whether the left wing did this sort of thing or not, conservatives would do it anyway the moment they were back in power. Because let's be honest, they would, and in America, they are.

That said, it is admittedly somewhat of a bad image to be the one doing it first. On the other hand, It's generally better to draw first blood if you are reasonably certain you're going to get into a fight anyway.

Again, though, I'm not Canadian, and their conservatives might be a lot more reasonable than our conservatives. I doubt it though.

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I get the impression that this is not an arbitrary ideological decision. The government is just refusing to fund summer camps that teach religious, non-factual sex and gender education. Anyone willing to arrange camps that teach stuff like that are free to fund the camp work force themselves.

Edit: I see no reason for any government to fund teaching something that can be shown to be non-truthful and harmful to a significant part of the population.

I get the impression that this is not an arbitrary ideological decision. The government is just refusing to fund summer camps that teach religious, non-factual sex and gender education. Anyone willing to arrange camps that teach stuff like that are free to fund the camp work force themselves.

Edit: I see no reason for any government to fund teaching something that can be shown to be non-truthful and harmful to a significant part of the population.

The thing is, the form they have to fill out specifically requires them to state that they support women's reproductive rights, which everyone understands to include the (nonexistent in law) right to an abortion. That's the ideological litmus test here--if you won't say that you support that, you can't access this grant program.

There might be other reasons to deny some or even all of these groups grants under this program (for instance, if they're looking for grants to lie to kids about sex and gender), but denying anyone who won't say they support women's reproductive rights access to the program is going too far for me.

For instance, let's say that someone applied for a grant under this program for a job that had absolutely nothing to do with sex or gender or reproduction or medicine or anything like that (just as a hypothetical--I don't know if this would be a job that could be funded by this--working as a data entry clerk for a small accounting firm). The applicant's stance on abortion has absolutely no bearing on what they're looking to hire someone to do, or what their business does, but if they won't, for whatever reason, tick that box about women's reproductive rights, they can't get the grant even though someone who does tick that box but is otherwise in an identical circumstance can.

« Last Edit: January 12, 2018, 05:57:57 am by dpareja »

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It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

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Be weird, cause normal is boring.

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From my rotting body, flowers will grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

The religious right (mostly) makes abortion an ideological issue but it is just a basic health care service. If there is health education on the camps that touch the subject there is a good reason to make sure government funds don't go to anti-abortion propaganda. I wouldn't want the government to pay for Jehova's Witnesses' propaganda against blood transfer or secular anti-vaxxer propaganda either.

If the camps don't teach anything about abortion one way or the other then I agree, this is an overreach.

The religious right (mostly) makes abortion an ideological issue but it is just a basic health care service. If there is health education on the camps that touch the subject there is a good reason to make sure government funds don't go to anti-abortion propaganda. I wouldn't want the government to pay for Jehova's Witnesses' propaganda against blood transfer or secular anti-vaxxer propaganda either.

If the camps don't teach anything about abortion one way or the other then I agree, this is an overreach.

And it's that last bit why asking the question up front is inappropriate, and that's the core of my objection.

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Quote from: Jordan Duram

It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Quote

Be weird, cause normal is boring.

Quote

From my rotting body, flowers will grow and I am in them and that is eternity.

The religious right (mostly) makes abortion an ideological issue but it is just a basic health care service. If there is health education on the camps that touch the subject there is a good reason to make sure government funds don't go to anti-abortion propaganda. I wouldn't want the government to pay for Jehova's Witnesses' propaganda against blood transfer or secular anti-vaxxer propaganda either.

If the camps don't teach anything about abortion one way or the other then I agree, this is an overreach.

And it's that last bit why asking the question up front is inappropriate, and that's the core of my objection.

For some reason I read last night the issue being only funding for religious summer camps, probably due to serious lack of sleep. This rule would make sense if that was the case but since it effects also charities that don't do direct indoctrination like soup kitchens it is a huge overreach. This just makes me dislike Trudeau even more than I already did.

The religious right (mostly) makes abortion an ideological issue but it is just a basic health care service. If there is health education on the camps that touch the subject there is a good reason to make sure government funds don't go to anti-abortion propaganda. I wouldn't want the government to pay for Jehova's Witnesses' propaganda against blood transfer or secular anti-vaxxer propaganda either.

If the camps don't teach anything about abortion one way or the other then I agree, this is an overreach.

And it's that last bit why asking the question up front is inappropriate, and that's the core of my objection.

For some reason I read last night the issue being only funding for religious summer camps, probably due to serious lack of sleep. This rule would make sense if that was the case but since it effects also charities that don't do direct indoctrination like soup kitchens it is a huge overreach. This just makes me dislike Trudeau even more than I already did.

Oh, those might be the groups suing over it, but I think it goes farther than that.

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Quote from: Jordan Duram

It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

Quote

The plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

Quote

Be weird, cause normal is boring.

Quote

From my rotting body, flowers will grow and I am in them and that is eternity.